Former Biafra warlord Odemegwu Ojukwu was known to be a disciplined and thoroughbred military man, from mere seeing his face tells a lot about him, Ojukwu hardly smiles and that is one of the features of uncompromising military men.
But despite the uncompromising countenance Ojukwu always put on, it’s hard to believe someone dares attempted to slap him, although the victim was under the influence of alcohol, and if not for the milk of kindness shown by Ojukwu to the erring white machinery would have been gunned down by Ojukwu subordinate.
At about the onset of the war, due to lack of adequate manpower, war machinery was employed by the Biafra state, it was as a result that brave German machinery by the name Rolf Steiner signifies his interest to fight for Biafra, although he was a sergeant in the French legion he was made a lieutenant colonel in the Biafra army and he was one of the major commanders of the Biafra military.
At first, Steiner was given small units of the army and recorded some impressive feats against the Nigeria army, he later earned the trust of Ojukwu and he was given command of 3,000 Biafra soldiers and operate under the name 4th Biafra commando brigade, he was now handling one of the most important brigades in the Biafra setup and for most of his duration commanding this army, he was acting more like a counterforce to the brigade led by Lt Colonel Benjamin Adekunle A.K.A black scorpion.
With such a powerful army at his disposal, he led them on some tasking assignments, but one negativity that always flawed his personality is the general insinuations within the Biafra camp that Steiner has no respect for the local’s soldiers and he is also high handedness, he was also known to promote and demote soldiers at will for one reason or the other.
The last straw that eventually breaks his camels back began November 15, 1968, when he launched the operation Hiroshima on the 3rd marine commando that was in the care of the much-feared Benjamin Adekunle, the operation was documented to be ill-conceived and by the time the operation was ultimately abandoned on 29 November, The 4th Brigade under his care have lost half of his men, and the result of this sent Steiner into a depressed state, he was now afraid that the Biafra soldiers were planning to him and he resulted into heavy drinking.
Consequentially, he was brought before Ojukwu to explain his failure, but he showed up heavily drunk and aggressive, right in the presence of Ojukwu he ordered more bottle of beer and when it was brought to him warm, he smashed the glass of beer on the ground demanding that he deserved a cold beer and when Ojukwu refused him his wish he attempted to slap Ojukwu across his face, his action lead to a brawl between him and Ojukwu bodyguards, and if not for the timely intervention of Ojukwu himself, Steiner would have been shot down on that spot, summarily at the end of the meeting he was stripped of his command and taken away in handcuff, following more confrontation with more Biafra colleagues he duly retired from service and expelled from Biafra on 10, December of 1968.
Steiner was born a German, but he instead started his military career as a legionnaire with the French army, he has tasted war in the Vietnam war, the Algeria war, the First Indochina War, the Suez war and first Sudanese war, and the Nigeria civil war.
It must be made known that throughout Rolf Steiner fighting on the side of Biafra, he worked for free as he so desires, he was born in1933 in Munich, Germany.
